


Late to the Party

by Comedienne



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Aro/Ace Spectrum, Aromantic spectrum, Asexuality Spectrum, Consent, F/M, Gender Identity, Growing Up, Interpersonal Exploration, Wisdom Teeth?, personal exploration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:17:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8185250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comedienne/pseuds/Comedienne
Summary: Pidge finds the whole girl-young-woman thing a bit difficult. She has a small chest and scruffy hair and a boyish face and she's never had a crush in her life, not the way she's heard people describe it. No heartwarming affection. No heart-pounding attraction. At least until now. Some great cosmic entity has decided that now is the time for great upheaval, a storm of physical and emotional development. She can feel her teeth moving. She's even sweatier than normal (like HOW?!). She's starting to get what all the interpersonal teen drama was about. She's not even a teen anymore! It's stupid and unfair. She did that puberty thing, with the bleeding and the acne and the bleeding acne. But the worst thing, from all this new wave maturation bull is her affection for Hunk and attraction to Keith. It's complicated and awkward and she doesn't know how to deal with it, though, to be fair, fooling around with Lance probably wasn't the way to go, you know, in retrospect.





	1. Wisdom and Maturity?

**Author's Note:**

> This starts off in a weird place, but since it's going to an arguably weirder place...

The conclusion to take away from today is that Shiro would make a terrible dentist.  
AND that Lance makes a terrible dental assistant.

All Shiro says is “Oh.” in a small, surprised voice. And if there’s one thing Pidge didn’t want to hear from anyone looking into her mouth, it is precisely that. Even Lance turns to Shiro out of curiosity. In his distraction, the torch in Lance’s grip tilts toward her eyes. It’s blindingly bright, but Shiro’s hold on her jaw is tight enough that she can’t pull away, only squint. Shiro’s voice is laden with confusion when he speaks again.  
“I’d thought it would be wisdom teeth…” He draws in closer to peer even more intently into her mouth. Pidge is more than ninety percent sure that her breath is rank, but Shiro is undeterred. “You’re the right age…but I didn’t expect…” Shiro releases her chin. Pidge eases her mouth closed around the swollen gum on her right hand side and bats the torch out of her face. “You’ve still got teeth coming in...”  
Lance splutters.  
“She’s over twenty, and you’re telling me she’s still losing baby teeth?!”  
“I’m pretty sure I’ve lost all my baby teeth, Shiro.” Her jaw aches from being open so wide for so long.  
“Pidge, your second molars are coming through.” Shiro’s brow is furrowed slightly.  
“Second molars?” Lance switches off the torch.  
“They’re really late.”  
“How late, Shiro?” Even as she speaks she’s tasting something acrid and vaguely bloody.  
“By five or six years. They should be in by like sixteen or so, but out of the four, from what I can see, one is halfway through.”  
“Why have I not heard of these?” Lance swings the torch in a dramatic arc.  
“Well, they usually come through without any trouble.”  
“Why have YOU heard of these?” Lance points the torch at Shiro.  
“Mine gave me trouble.”  
“Please tell me that means you know how to deal with this.” She sounds whiny. She knows she sounds whiny.  
“A bit. Though we are talking about over fifteen years ago here. For right now, all I can suggest is that you brush gently and hope the swelling goes down overnight.”

Pidge makes sure to sleep on her left side.


	2. Swelling and Swearing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge tries to eat lunch. Lance tries to eat lunch. The menu consists of goo and cussing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 0 to 100 real quick. Earning that Explicit already. Profanity, kinda sacrilegious maybe. Implications of some really uncool stuff.

The swelling does go down while Pidge sleeps. When she wakes her mouth still feels tender, but when she presses her tongue against where the swelling had been all she meets is teeth, though she still tastes something acrid.  
Breakfast goes fine, but by lunch the swelling has returned with a vengeance. Closing her mouth around the swollen gum is uncomfortable at best and painful at worst, let alone actually chewing anything, which she thankfully doesn’t have to do considering their diet is almost entirely in goo form. Hunk keeps sending her these sad, pitying looks, though she has been gazing forlornly into her goo for several minutes. There might also have been pouting. Doesn’t change the fact that Hunk’s kicked puppy face makes HER want to go comfort HIM. She’s the one struggling to eat goo. He looks like he’s about to cry.  
Keith though, barely spares her a look before he’s leaving the table to go train with Shiro, though it is a sympathetic look. Eventually, even Hunk has to leave.  
She’s alone at the table. Usually she’d enjoy the quiet of it, but it means there’s nothing to distract her from the three quarters of a serving still left in her bowl and how she’s basically chewing on her own gums. She finds the empty chairs obnoxious.  
She’s hungry. She wants to keep eating. She really does, but moving her jaw is getting harder and harder and that awful taste is still in her mouth.  
She breathes a sigh of relief when Lance walks in with his own bowl of goo perched on his fingertips. The only person potentially more irritating than mouth pain. The perfect distraction. Lance already has his spoon clamped between his teeth. The handle sticks comically out of the corner of his mouth. He settles himself into the seat across from her in a way only a dramatic and lanky person can, suddenly collapsing into the chair, all joints and wingspan and no bulk. It’s like watching spaghetti fall into a boiling pot, the way pasta snobs do it, like they’re setting up for a game of pickup sticks, letting the strands scatter and fan out, tall and brittle, before turning languid and sinking beneath the burbling water, which is to say, his posture is terrible.  
Lance doesn’t acknowledge her, which is her first sign that something isn’t right. In fact, his greetings have been more enthusiastic as of late, so the absence of his lopsided grin in her personal space is odd enough to warrant apprehension. Lance doesn’t even look at her, just grumbles into his goo. What the goo did to deserve how violently he stabs his spoon into it Pidge doesn’t know. She catches something about ‘not depraved’ but the rest becomes unintelligible when he jams his spoon into his mouth. He still keeps babbling around the handle. Pidge figures she might as well nip whatever nonsense this is in the bud. Talking hurts, but circumventing a Lance-Keith altercation takes precedence over avoiding discomfort.  
“Are you and Keith fighting again? Do we need to send you two back to couple’s counselling?”  
She expects to get a rise out of him, something about ‘stupid Keith and his stupid ponytail’. He should rant for a while; she would tell him to shove his ego and go apologize. That’s the routine exchange anyway, but then Lance is going off script in the most colourful way.  
“Not Keith. Goddamn Shiro AND his pseudo-hyper-moralistic bullshit, I am fucking insulted!” It’s pronounced with entirely too much hiss and spittle, but there’s genuine hurt in there too. Can something even be pseudo and hyper something at the same time? The hard ‘g’ in fucking doesn’t bode well either. Lance shoves a hand through his hair. “Can-not fuck-ing be-lieve that asshole’d think- like are you actually shitting my nuts, like I would-! What kinda punk ass- well I WOULD but fuckin’ not without- that’s fucked up. That’s fucked up. I wouldn’t, too far, like NO, no way in fucking HELL, too far! Fuck. No.”  
Something in Pidge is almost afraid. Keith often stirs Lance up, but this, this spitting, swearing anger, is something different. Lance isn’t censoring his rage at all. He usually does, and they’ve been through some shit. She’s heard Lance spout some crass stuff, generally in reference to his junk and mostly harmless, but right now he’s stringing F-bombs together like he’s threading them onto the most profane of rosaries.  
“What on Earth did he say? I mean you look about ready to have an aneurysm.”  
“It’s not what he said; it’s what he implied.”  
“Then what did he imply? ‘Cause you’ve done nothing but imply things too and it’s starting to piss me off.” A thought to the effect of ‘see, I can cuss too’ flits through her head unbidden, even as she winces at how her swollen gum squishes.  
Lance’s fists uncurl. He catches his lower lip between his teeth. His gaze slides to the side before it flicks to her face. What he says throws her for a loop.  
“He implied that I’m manipulative and predatory, that I’d take advantage of you.”  
And there’s only one thing she can say to that.  
“The fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I'd get this piece in gear rather than dithering about. Might've cranked the dial a bit far tho. Go on, count the F-bombs.


	3. Handsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Pidge have a very important conversation, though most of it probably goes over her head.

“Okay, first of all: language-”  
“Fuck off.”  
“And second of all: I know right!” Lance looks like he wants to say more, but shoves a spoonful of goo into his mouth instead. “It’s ass-backward and stupid.” Or at least that’s what Pidge thinks Lance says as it’s garbled around the spoon. It clicks against his teeth when he pulls the spoon from his mouth. “Like yeah, I’m pissed he thought I would ever be so…” Lance just gestures. “Like really, REALLY pissed,” His voice falls into something deep and cold when he says that. “But he talked about you like you were a child, like you can’t make your own decisions about that stuff. Like, I just, that’s, no.” He scrubs a knuckle against his chin, wincing at the scratch of stubble he feels. “Shiro needs to cut it out with that fatherly crap. You’re already equipped with a taser. If that doesn’t ease his Dad Nerves, next thing you know it’ll be a goddamn chastity belt or some shit.”  
“Well, if he brings it up again you can assure him that my chastity is VERY much intact so he can chill out with the Protecting My Honour schtick.”  
“Noted. But like, you know I wouldn’t be like that right?” There’s something earnest in his eyes, and then he’s setting down his spoon, reaching over even though the table’s slightly too wide for even his lanky arms. Pidge can’t help but laugh at how uncomfortable he looks with the table’s edge digging into his chest and his arm stretched out expectantly.  
“What?”  
“Just gimme your hand Pidge. We’re having a moment and this is important.” He wriggles his outstretched fingers. When Pidge just looks skeptical, he sends her a look that involves raised eyebrows and too much blinking.  
“Fine.” She slaps her hand haphazardly into his. Pidge anticipates some commentary on how sweaty her hands are, but Lance just arranges her fingers into something more elegant, twisting her wrist as his thumb grazes across her knuckles. He looks like he might bring her hand to his lips for a kiss, as she’s seen him do on occasion, but he doesn’t. Half a smile, small but intended to reassure, pulls at the corner of Lance’s mouth.  
“Like I really, really wouldn’t be like that, not ever,” he says in a quiet voice. Lance gives her fingers a brief squeeze. He pulls back as he releases, letting their fingers slip further apart. Pidge feels callouses through the sweaty slide. His callouses, her sweat, she thinks, and then she can’t stop thinking, about how she’s got callouses too and Lance probably ends up with clammy hands sometimes and how hand-holding is weird and why is it even a thing and maybe she should clean under her fingernails. She doesn’t even notice Hunk enter the dining room or the confused face Hunk makes at how their fingertips are still touching.  
Lance, however, does notice. He flinches back, bashing his elbow into the table full-force in the process. Lance clutches his arm and takes a hissing breath in through his teeth.  
“Hey guys,” Hunk greets, though his eyes are still flicking between them.  
“Oh, hey Hunk,” Pidge says rather absently. She’s still in thought and unaware of how Lance is both flustered and wincing just at the edge of her peripheral vision, unaware of the baffled-judgmental look Hunk is giving Lance, unaware of just how much subtext is running underneath this whole scene.  
“I, uh,” Lance starts, but there’s really no finish to be had. He’s panicking.  
And then, totally unwittingly, in one fell swoop, Pidge diffuses the whole situation.  
“Do you think I should clip my nails?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Facepalm* Pidge...Really?


	4. Dressed Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge looks rockin’ tonight. You know it. I know it. Heck, Shiro knows it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith you insensitive...

Hunk doesn’t say anything about the arguably intimate touch he’d seen. Hunk doesn’t say anything about the soft look in Lance’s eyes. Hunk doesn’t say anything about the vibrant flush across Lance’s cheeks.  
At least he doesn’t say anything to PIDGE.  
Lance on the other hand has been hearing about it for DAYS.

“Lance-”  
“I’m gonna stop you right there buddy,” Lance raises a hand. “If only on tone alone. We’ve had this conversation. Many times, as it happens.”  
“But-”  
“They can call this shindig whatever they want - ball, banquet - I don’t care. THIS is a party and WE are going to have a good time.”  
“But Lance-”  
“We ARE. So let’s put all the tough stuff away and hit up the buffet-”  
Lance cuts off when Hunk takes hold of his head and forcibly twists him around.  
“What are you trying to do?! Break my neck?” Lance screeches.  
“Look.” Hunk’s voice is earnest in Lance’s ear.  
Lance isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be looking at until he catches a fleeting wisp of green. Allura drags Pidge (colour-coded, of course) by the arm through the pink and purple outfits of the attendees.  
“Yeah, and? You’re acting like I didn’t know she’d be here. It’s our gig Hunk; everyone’s here.”  
“The gown Lance!”  
“I know we generally wear armor to these things but it’s not like I’ve never seen her in a dress, Hunk.”  
“But don’t you think it’s a bit…” Hunk makes a vague gesture.  
“A bit what?”  
“Much?”  
“Look around. She’s hardly overdressed.”  
“Exactly! Lance-”  
“What is that supposed to mean?!”  
“Don’t you even try to tell me you don’t think she looks…” Hunk flounders visibly for a word other than sexy. He’d say suggestive, but the expanse of Pidge’s back that her dress exposes is fairly clear in its intent, as are the high slits up either side. “Sensual.”  
“That’s what you’re going with?” Lance accompanies this with a raised brow.  
“You know what I mean!”  
“Look, Hunk, Pidge looks rockin’ tonight. You know it. I know it. Heck, Shiro knows it!” Lance gesticulates wildly in the direction of a stoic Shiro, who has positioned himself strategically with Pidge and Allura in view. “The only thing stopping him from warding guys off with a stick is the fact that he doesn’t have a stick.”  
“The glare and the inevitable dressing down will have to do huh?”  
“Exactly.”  
“After all, it worked on you didn’t it.”  
“Hunk,” Lance warns.

Across the ballroom, Pidge stares down into her drink, some bubbling fluid in striking electric blue, as it swirls in her glass. She didn’t know what she expected, wearing this dress, but Keith’s non-response wasn’t it. He’d just stood there, chatted with her same as normal. No comment was made on the dress. Like, what the hell? Lance’s suit got a compliment, but the flashiest dress she’d ever worn? Nothing. Not a word. She’d thought that - she’d at least hoped that - maybe Keith would like it, at least a little.  
If she was honest, what she’d wanted was his hands on her, ever since the last ball, when the formality of it all had forced him onto the dance floor. His hand at her ribs had been warm and strong, even if their clasped hands had been awkward and slippery with sweat. Before the dance had ended, she’d flubbed the steps a little in her distraction. In an act of correction, Keith had shifted his grip to her hips to whip her around to the position she’d needed to be in. In that brief moment, he’d lifted her off the ground. It was weird, how suddenly and intensely it had called up the image of him beneath her skirts, hands on her thighs.  
Pidge had avoided Keith for the rest of the night to stew over the thought. She’d never been interested in that stuff before, not ever treated it as anything but abstract, something she conceptually understood but was unable to properly affix to reality. She hesitated to even think it, but in the space of two minutes, Keith had, most likely inadvertently, utterly seduced her. It scared her, that if Keith had asked, for basically anything at all, she just couldn’t imagine that she’d say no. She’d shut people down before, hesitation absolutely absent, but Pidge just couldn’t seem to summon any aversion to a hypothetical proposition from Keith. None.  
It was an odd conclusion to reach, fuzzy and distant as it felt, the thought that you’d let somebody fuck you. It’d taken a few days to really come to grips with that idea, but now Pidge could finally admit to herself that Keith putting his dick in her was a semi-alluring prospect, weird, but intriguing. She wanted his attention, hence the dress. It would’ve been a good idea, that is, if it had actually worked.  
It hadn’t. And now, all Pidge had to show for her efforts at appeal was regret and goosebumps.  
She downs her glass and hopes there’s some alcohol in whatever she’s drinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pidge...Put that drink down...Pidge...


	5. Unbalanced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance watches as Pidge just keeps drinking.

Pidge gets just drunk enough to smile back at the person Allura introduces her to. Their speech is mild and even, accompanied by only subtle gestures. They smile when they talk. She smiles back. He falls easily into the category of Nice Enough Guy, so Pidge refrains from recoiling when he uses a peculiarly long tongue to push his glasses back up his nose. She figures if she had a tongue like that she’d probably do that too. Plus, aliens get leeway for weirdness.  
Pidge sits at his table - not so much because of the Nice Guy Thing so much as the Comfy Chair Thing and continues to sip at her drink - repeatedly refilled by passing servers - though perhaps more frequently than she should, if the encroaching headache and general drowsiness are anything to go by.  
The evening proceeds in this manner:  
They ‘chat’. He talks. She nods a bit. He talks some more. He does the Tongue-glasses Thing again. She ignores him doing the Tongue-glasses Thing again. She pretends it’s hairgel slicking his hair back. Repeat ad nauseam. And yes. Those are words. She’s not that drunk. Latin words, actually. Also, figurative nauseam. Not literal. She’s not that drunk. He’s still talking. Somehow. Pidge slips off her shoes under the table. Full length tablecloths, saviour of all. She has that headache now, like a skull full of roof insulation, but she’s not that drunk - she thinks as she continues to disappear drinks, the alcohol content of which she does not know. She does not know how she manages it.  
Sipping her drink in lieu of speaking is how she manages it.  
Pidge would not be able, not for the life of her, to recall the conversation.  
Not a word.  
Maybe one word.  
Cute.  
He keeps calling Pidge cute.

Pidge is an idiot.  
At least that’s what Lance thinks, as he flails and facepalms and mutters aloud just outside the ballroom, since he’s been avoiding Hunk, for the past hour or two.  
Lance sees how much Pidge is drinking. He sees that Shiro is quite preoccupied with Allura, on the dancefloor, of all places. Allura, by the same token, is quite preoccupied with Shiro. Lance can also see quite clearly that this guy is interested in Pidge. Lance can add one more person to the list of folks who know Pidge looks rockin’ tonight. That at least is obvious, but it still manages to surprise when he actually makes a move. Part of it is the swiftness with which the ballroom falls silent and still.  
Which is why he can hear with utter clarity the smack when Pidge slaps him.  
Even from here, Lance can see Pidge’s open palm turning red. And the guy’s face. Definitely the guy’s face.

Pidge only realises how drunk she is when she stands. It’s like all the alcohol had settled in her legs, leaving her faculties for speech and upper body movement intact, but making it more difficult than it should be to extricate herself from the chairs and tables. The lights swirl just slightly too much as she exits the ballroom.

Her shoes are still under the table.


	6. To stillness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance comes to the immediate conclusion that he is a moron. Full stop. End of report. Works cited: this moment. Publish it in some academic journal only professors read and wait for the accolades.

Pidge’s swiftness disappears abruptly, all at once, when she reaches the shadow of the hallway. The momentum of knee-jerk panic, that had carried her across the room, turns so suddenly to emotional inertia that she simply stands in the doorway for several moments.

She makes an interesting figure. Starkly backlit. Swaying ever so slightly. Bare feet. Lance can’t see her face, but he can see how the hem of her dress brushes against her toes. He can’t seem to move, even as whatever trance she’s in breaks enough for her to step further into the dark. Pidge cools her back against the wall for a moment before using it to lower herself to the floor. She draws her knees up and the motion has dress fabric slipping down her thighs, the slits so high that the entire skirt of her gown falls away from her legs. She must not register he’s there, or at the very least she simply doesn’t care that he’s there, otherwise she’d probably be embarrassed at flashing him. Her knees are set apart just so, and the consequently visible inner thigh makes Lance feel slightly warmer. He’d almost think he was dreaming if not for Pidge’s choice of underwear. As seductive a dress as tonight’s would usually call for something lacey or silken, but there’s plain cotton instead, not that it really cools his blood any.

Pidge isn’t sure how long she sits curled up against the wall, isn’t sure when it was exactly that Lance arranged himself into an angular pretzel at her side, isn’t sure what to feel, even though she’s been caught in the feeling of something - something tidal, nebulous, amorphous - for an indeterminate amount of time. She rouses slowly to the sound of Lance’s breathing. Steady. Quiet. He hasn’t said anything and it doesn’t seem that he intends to. It’s almost like he’s sleeping, if not for the tension in his hands - not fists, but curling.

For Lance there is waiting. He sets himself in stillness to mirror hers, doesn’t even set his gaze upon her. He knows on instinct that his eyes would be too heavy, felt as judgement, even though his only reason to look at her is to see. He leaves her pale skin, the curve of her shoulder, the musculature of her thigh in his periphery. Eyes set forward, only the wall opposite meets him. It is only when Pidge stretches her legs out in front of her, rests her hands on her thighs, that he lets his gaze flit to the side. Her dress is still askew. She’s visibly cold. He curses the phrase ‘respectable distance’, though wouldn’t dare close the gap, even with an offered jacket, for how could it be received? Friendly consideration? Pushy come-on?

“Lance,” she begins.  
Her expression is vaguely neutral, her voice almost calm.  
He is not equipped, not for this conversation, not to offer her guidance or consolation or whatever it is anyone responsible would give her.  
“Kiss me,” she says, much in the same tone she’d call for the next wrench in the set.

Inquisitive and daring, indeed.

“No,” he says, because his characteristics as a voltron pilot must be denial and cowardice.  
Whatever experiment it is she’s proposing, whatever hypothesis it is Pidge meant to test, it is Lance that comes to the immediate conclusion that he is a moron. Full stop. End of report. Works cited: this moment. Publish it in some academic journal only professors read and wait for the accolades.  
She shrugs.  
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that. Just was kinda wondering what a kiss not from a random would be like.”  
“Pidge-”  
“I feel like I’m supposed to be mad, or something, like angry at him, but I’m not. Or maybe sad, but nope.”  
She laughs.  
He stares at her mouth.


	7. True or False

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance knows he has to step in, say something, because none of them have said the important things. Not the things concerned with her slapping him, but the things concerned with him kissing her.

Turns out Tongue-Glasses-Nice-Enough Guy is pretty important, or rather, his father is, in a capital P for Political, capital P for Patriarchal Monarchy-esque System, kind of way.   
It means that Shiro and Hunk have to pull out all the stops to placate a king, even though the son seems to have taken the slight as well as anyone can really take a literal slap in the face. Shiro is profusely apologetic and Hunk appears desperate to exonerate Pidge’s character (which is starting to prove difficult, considering how all the good Pidge Stories involve ass-kicking and sass). It’s Keith who points out that human courtship is probably pretty different, though he’s pretty hopeless when asked what human courtship is like. 

Lance knows he has to step in, say something, because none of them have said the important things. Not the things concerned with her slapping him, but the things concerned with him kissing her.  
“It was her first kiss,” and that’s true. “It’s really important in basically every Earth culture,” which is also true. “Especially for girls.” But that last part is a bit bullshit. He is eternally grateful that Pidge was kept away from this conversation and isn’t here to hear this; she’d deck him.  
The king doesn’t appear to have anything to say to this. The son is also silent, but looks contrite rather than affronted. He’ll have to apologize to him for this ruse later.  
“The first kiss would traditionally be given to someone with whom she had a strong emotional bond of months, even years.” He’s pushing it with that one.  
The son’s expression grows vaguely horrified.  
“Pidge is quite old to be experiencing her first kiss.” True. “I suspect she was saving it for someone truly special.” Lie. She was too busy being hella ballsy and trying to recover her father and brother, and, you know, pretending to be a boy. “She must’ve been too drunk to understand your question.” Lie. She was pretty far gone, but not that far. And now the kicker. “You did ask her, right?”  
Nobody’s saying anything, even the son who just shakes his head.  
“Did you at least announce your intentions?”  
The look says it all, but he gets a reply regardless.  
“I-no, no I didn’t.”  
“Ah, then I doubt she’ll forgive you.” Of course she won’t; she’s not upset in the first place. The only one upset is him, who’d received a drunken kiss proposition born out of nothing more than curiosity. “You’d best leave her to grieve her stolen kiss.” The look Hunk’s giving him lets Lance know he’s laid it on too thick, but Shiro looks impressed, maybe even a touch proud. The king says no more about it.


	8. Gun Safety

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The blue bayard skitters to rest at Pidge’s feet.

Lance has no idea how it happens, but apparently the whole Not Kiss Incident has put him in the position of Pidge’s personal confidant. It starts with a simple offhand comment about how ‘Keith is actually kinda cute’, which strikes him as an odd comment to make because Keith seems to be going more for a roguish kind of handsome, the shaggy-haired, muscular look, if Keith cares about appearances at all, that is. He figures Pidge is just putting it lightly, casually. After all, cute is a fairly innocuous word. Regardless, old wounds of envy sting when she continues to confide in him about Keith. Keith’s greasy ponytail might leave something to be desired, but he is young and physically fit. He can understand Pidge’s position on that front, even if hearing about Pidge’s opinion of Keith’s butt is starting to grate on his nerves. If she’s got the hots for that greasy little muscle-head, fine. What really weirds him out though is how Pidge talks about Hunk.  
“I don’t know. He’s just really come into his own, ya know?” Pidge muses as her bayard whips around her ankles.  
It is not the first time she’s said something like this about Hunk.  
“He’s really such a sweet guy,” she says, as if Hunk hasn’t been a dear friend of his for several years too.  
“I bet he’d be nice, all gentle and shit, kissing, I mean.”  
Hot and sudden, he’s jealous. His blood floods with it. Lance’s finger must twitch on the trigger because his foot burns and he’s screaming. His stance and grip both fail. His bayard and his shoulder hit the floor at the same time.

The blue bayard skitters to rest at Pidge’s feet.

Lance has been in a pod for some dumb shit over the years, but this takes the cake. Heck, put it in his obituary - He died as he lived, embarrassed. They had to log it too. There are few things so harsh as seeing the words so flat like that. Foot injury. Blaster wound. Self-inflicted.  
But nothing made him feel more foolish than the look on Pidge’s face.  
“What the heck kind of shooting do ya call that?” She’s still sweaty from their impromptu bayard session. He really must be dead, because she’s a glorious, damp valkyrie on the warpath. She’ll drag him into Valhalla by the ears, because there shouldn’t be a way to die from such a minor wound, but Lance has clearly found it.  
“Yeah, I haven’t done something that dumb in a while.”  
“I would hope not, but like, seriously-”  
“It was dumb. I know.”  
“Lance, you shot yourself. It obviously bothers you. I mean, you and Hunk have always been close. I should’ve thought about the position it would put you in.”  
Yeah, he doesn't say, the position where he’s so jealous that the concept of gun safety eludes him.  
“Plus, it’s probably weird, right?” she shrugs. “Hardly the image of a cute couple, it’s more comical than anything. I mean, can you picture me, like, with him all - ya know - and stuff...” she gets quiet as her thought trails off.  
He breathes. Swallows.  
“It’s not that I Can’t picture it. It’s that I don’t want to.”

Pidge’s head whips up from her floor-gazing, because what the fuck does that even mean? But Lance is already sprinting out as fast as his freshly-healed feet can carry him.


	9. Green for Envy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They don't so much talk as have a staring competition.

It’s late when she corners him. Her bayard glows green against his throat in the dim light.  
He’s fucked up. He HAS fucked up in that he couldn’t follow through and tell Pidge properly how jealous he is. And he IS fucked up in that even with her bayard humming at his neck, Lance finds Pidge snarling down at him entirely too hot.

Pidge is out of breath, chasing him down apparently having stolen it from her. Each huff against his face warm and humid. Her breath isn’t great, but mild halitosis is an observation that rapidly slides from his thoughts in favour of his own need to breathe, which is proving quite difficult considering Pidge is SITTING ON HIS CHEST.

This should be the moment. The moment when someone comes in and the lights flick up to full, lighting their compromising position such that they have to frantically explain that it’s not what it looks like.

But it doesn’t happen.  
The room stays dark. The room stays quiet.  
Their breathing and the hum of Pidge’s bayard, that’s all.  
Lance feels vaguely light-headed, oxygen-deprived or entranced or, fuck, both probably. The chase-scene lead-up to This had been goofy enough, so typically Lance Avoids Consequences/Responsibility/Etcetera, that the weird tension of whatever This is - which is getting horrifically close to Discovering A Kink territory - needs to be broken immediately-right-now-this-second. But gosh darn if he can actually force any words out of his dry throat and past his heavy tongue. He swallows. Pidge’s eyes flick to his throat but flick back to his face when he nervously wets his lips.

This has to stop. Before it becomes what it isn’t. Which it won’t. But it might. Which it shouldn’t. But it could. So he has to Say Something. Speak. Do The Talk. Use the words. Come on Lance. Use your words, Lance. For God's Sake, Lance. Use. Your. Words.

“I uh-”  
Good Job Lance. You did-done use one of them-there words. He looks up at Pidge. Fuck, she’s striking, even in the sickly pale green her bayard casts her in. He has stopped talking. Idiot. Lost in her goddamn eyes like a goddamned fool. So he shuts his own eyes, scrunches them closed like a flinch. Keep talking.  
When he looks back at Pidge, her eyebrows say Go On but the bayard says Cautiously.

“I’m jealous.”  
Pidge’s steely gaze breaks into something wide-eyed and confused.

She should be getting off him. Should move from his chest. But she’s just staring at him.

“Why?” she asks.


	10. One Hell of a Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He says it so easily, so genuinely.

“Why?” she asks. If that ain’t one hell of a question.  
“Pidge, you’re amazing.”

He says it so easily, so genuinely - low and soft and breathy. Pidge knows Lance well enough to pick that up. But to Pidge it doesn’t make any sense. Him saying that, in that way. Pidge doesn’t understand, for the simple reason that it hadn’t ever occurred to her that Lance, who falls so often for women the way one falls down the stairs - suddenly, clumsily, ridiculously, so loud and flailing and inevitably bruised - might just have feelings for her. Not sparks of attraction or fondness. But smouldering adoration and desire. Wisps of smoke. And the glow of heat. But not yet flame. She had never considered what he may have felt.   
And even now, with his soft gaze on her, Pidge doesn’t quite get it. But with his hands on her - a simple effort to move her weight from his aching ribs - she gains some measure of what this moment is. Because it is so very close to what she had once pictured. The image of Keith’s, roguish, lopsided smile. The illusion of his hands - always with fingerless gloves, because, of course. His voice - in fantasy - low and crackling with that sort-of smokey quality. It all shatters, breaks, leaves behind the very real sensation of Lance’s slim-fingered grip, the very real sound of his voice - so much smoother, a soft and even smile. All completely, inescapably, real.

“Pidge,” Lance starts again, “I’m jealous because you’re amazing and I want,” he pauses, wets his lips, swallows, “I want, so much, to kiss you.”  
“But you said no.” It’s out before she can stop it, before she can think much about it, about how whiny it sounds.  
“You were drunk.”  
“Not that drunk.”  
“And emotional.”

And suddenly, a memory, from weeks ago now, of Lance’s hand stretched across the dining table, and a quiet promise - I really, really wouldn’t be like that, not ever.  
And then she feels stupid.

Lance takes her wrist, to shift her bayard aside. Her arm moves stiffly, but without resistance, and beneath her, he sits up. From her place, sitting on his thighs, they’re no longer eye-to-eye. He’s taller than her, even like this. Lance stills. He’s waiting. Waiting for something. The moment stretches, thin and tense. Pidge doesn’t know what to say, what to do. Lance is waiting for Something. She doesn’t know what, but Something. The moment breaks, not with a snap, but just sort of tapers off under its own weight.

**Author's Note:**

> Shamelessly foists my issues onto characters...Writing!


End file.
